


Otherworld

by eerian_sadow



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Body Horror, Crossover, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Transformation, community: TransformersForever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-28
Updated: 2010-11-28
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracks is undergoing some massive <i>changes</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Otherworld

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Nov. 2010 contest at TransformersForever on DA. Won’t lie. This isn’t the piece I had planned at all. Tracks did this really vague and sort of metaphysical thing on me. Dunno.
> 
> Many thanks to [](http://bookworm-faith.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://bookworm-faith.livejournal.com/)**bookworm_faith** for the beta.

He drew back a fist back and slammed it into the mirror with a despairing cry. The glass shattered and dropped to the floor with an almost harmonious sound. Tracks dropped to his knees among the shards and covered his face with his hands.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It was a matter of hours before anyone noticed the changes coming over his form, but it would be days before anyone pinpointed the cause. And worst of all, Ratchet couldn’t find a way to reverse the process.

Thanks to Starscream’s prototype, he would never be himself again.

It was a gradual change, for all that it proceeded fairly quickly. There was enough time between the moment his wings started lengthening out to something that would rival a Seeker’s wingspan and the moment the last planes of his face split apart that the others could still recognize him, but when he looked in the mirror—or any reflective surface—he didn’t recognize himself.

He looked… grotesque. There were gears _visible_ in his facial structure. He could actually see the mechanisms that controlled the movement of his mouth parts. And his optics looked like nothing more than a pair of LED lights, with overhanging flaps that pretended to be shutters. The red had even leeched out of the plating, leaving behind silver that would have looked more appropriate on a Praxian than it did on him.

He still carried his heavier, frontline quality armor, but it had shifted. It covered different areas now, protecting vital components that were equally out of place and creating joints and bendable points that hadn’t existed before. His legs were longer, as were his arms and torso, and he had needed to relearn how to walk again as his center of gravity shifted.

The new arrangement of his armor carried a second, more frightening, consequence as well. If he shifted just right, the plating over his chest parted and his spark chamber was visible to the world. It was far too easily exposed and would be a very, very easy target for the Decepticons. Optimus Prime had been forced to take him off the combat roster, a move that did not help his already flagging self-worth.

Somehow he had acquired a second transformation cog during the transformation, and the modification that had allowed him to fly in car mode had become a full second alternate mode. His new status as a triple changer was the only benefit he could find in the situation.

Everything else in his life had been turned upside down.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Tracks, man, I’m telling ya. It ain’t so bad.” Blaster put a hand—far too carefully, thanks to the sharper plating that was there now—on his shoulder. The gesture was meant to be comforting, he knew, but it only reinforced how different Tracks was now. “Your blue is still gorgeous, your shine is still fine and you are still one sweet ride.”

“And that’s all I am now.” Tracks sighed deeply and shrugged off his friend’s hand. “Not even Raul can stand to look at me anymore, and Human aesthetics are vastly inferior to our own.”

“Hey, Tracks.” Blaster grabbed his shoulder again, much more confidently this time. “I still see you. You’re still Tracks, badass warrior and fine mech. So the outside looks different; you’re still my friend.”

The blue mech gave him a sad smile. “You have no idea how much I wish I believed that.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The other Autobots stared. Of course they did; he was hideous to look at. Sometimes they would look away when they realized he had noticed, but other times they would just keep staring.

The worst looks came from Sunstreaker. From Sunstreaker, there was neither horror nor shock. Not sympathy or an obvious effort to simply accept what he was now. Sunstreaker, who was now undisputedly the most beautiful mech serving on the _Ark_ , looked at him with pity.

It was all he could do not to run back to his quarters and open an energon line when he received one of Sunstreaker’s pitying looks.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Some nights, he dreamed.

On those nights, there was a cube and it called to him. Part of him longed to be there, where ever it was. It seemed to offer him some kind of hope. A measure of peace.

There were other mech like him there, as well. Mechs who shared his strange new design and who, even in his dreams, didn’t look at him with pity or sorrow. Once a mech who looked eerily similar to his Prime had even reached out and tried to take his hand, tried to bring Tracks to his side.

That night, the blue mech had come online sobbing.

Other nights, he dreamed he was back in his old body on the planet with the cube. The other mechs were still there, but instead of being warm and accepting they gave him the same pitying, sad or horrified stares his own comrades did. Those nights, the despair was at its worst and his pistol looked far too friendly in earliest hours of the morning.

He prayed on the nights he dreamed, hoping that somehow he would be returned to the mech he was or that he could somehow be transported to this other world, where he could fit in again.

His prayers were never answered.


End file.
